Flaming Pablum

People Were Strange

I was never really a Doors fan. Apart from the crucial placement of “The End” in the opening sequence of “Apocalypse Now” and maybe the funky riff of the ridiculously-titled “Peace Frog,” they were never my particular cup of tea. I mean, I don’t scramble to turn them off whenever they frequently come on the radio, but I just never bought the whole “Jim Morrison is a shaman!” bullshit. I mean, I recognize that they were a sizable influence on many a band I hold dear – from The Stooges to the Stranglers to The Cult and beyond – but something about The Doors tends to grate after a while. To me, anyway.

That all said, I was indeed bummed to learn earlier this week of the death of Doors organist Ray Manzarek, whose unapologetically noodley keys largely defined the band’s sound. Not only was Ray’s playing a massive influence on the afore-cited Stranglers, the man was instrumental in honing the attack of the preeminent Los Angeleno punk band X over the course of their first few seminal albums, which he produced (and occasionally played on). He also seemed like a pretty cool cat. Click here to read what the members of X had to say about the man.

Upon learning of his passing, an old college friend of mine posted the video below, an officially released video for “Strange Days.” Not sure when it was filmed, but obviously after ol’ Jimbo took that final, fateful bath. Interspersed between archival band footage, we see some freaky hijinx filmed in suitable surreal style on the streets of New York, notably in the cover location of the album in question, Sniffen Court up in the seemingly incongruous environs of East 36th Street. I took that shot of it above at some point in the mid 90’s. It still looks much the same today.

Let's Get Down To It, Boppers: Exhuming "The Warriors"

If you were a pre-adolescent male growing up in the 1970’s, chances are that even the slightest invocation of Walter Hill’s “The Warriors” from 1979 will prompt you to dutifully and emphatically spout off any number of memorable declarations, from “CAN YOU DIG IT?” to “COME OUT TO PLAAYAY!” and beyond. I asserted as much in my typically overwritten review of the inaccurately titled “Ultimate Director’s Cut” from 2005. Put simply, “The Warriors” may be very silly, but it’s a very silly classic, by gosh.

I still remember first spying the movie poster (see below) and practically hyperventilating with anticipation (the next time I’d undergo such a sensation would be upon seeing the full-page ad for Alan Parker’s cinematic adaptation of “Pink Floyd The Wall” a few years later). You have to remember, this was all way before the Internet. Unless you were a dutiful reader of industry tip sheets, you often wouldn’t know about an impending album or movie or whathaveyou until the first run of promotional materials hit the media. As such, upon seeing the poster for “The Warriors” (notably the unmistakably KISS-alluding member of the Baseball Furies), it immediately became the highest of possible priorities to see this movie.

At the time, “The Warriors” seemed impossibly gritty, violent and nightmarish, amplifying the very real brutality of these New York City streets. As I mentioned in that review, these many decades later, the depiction of New York City in “The Warriors” seems surreal, fanciful and, for a lack of a better word, quaint.

Regardless, “The Warriors” remains an all-time favorite of the era. Imagine my glee, then, upon seeing that another one of my favorite blogs, Scouting New York, had turned its laser-precise eye on the locations of “The Warriors.” Ever wonder where Cyrus was actually shot or where the Orphans’ meager turf was or where the Turnbull A.C.s got served? Find those answers and more over the next few days at Scouting New York. Find the first installment here.

More NYC movie stuff? Sure: 

Top Eleven Favorite Movies Filmed In & Depicting NYC
Long After "After Hours"
Back to Woody's SoHo
Stranger Still Than "Stranger Than Paradise"
It's a Shame About "Sam"
Exhuming "The Cruise"

Meet the Meat

Spend enough time on this blog, or on Jeremiah Moss' Vanishing New York or EV Grieve and you'll invariably hear one of us lament about how the Meat Packing District used to be such an endearingly rough & tumble backwater, steeped in its own brand of nightlife and culture. That's all been obliterated today. More so than the East Village or SoHo or even Times Square, the Meat Packing District's radical facelift is easily the most severe of this city's transformation over the last twenty-five years.

Walk around the MPD now, and you're bound to feel either underdressed or underfabulous and inevitably made nauseous by what you see. But back in the late 80's and 90's, it was an indescribably different scene.

I've mentioned the area a few times. Joints like The Village Idiot, The Hog Pit, The Cooler were favorites of mine back in the day. I even darkened the already-very-dark doors of The Vault once or twice. Don't bother looking for any of them now, they've all been shuttered and replaced by posh shops, ritzy restaurants and hoighty-toighty hotels.

But one of my favorite photoblogs, Gregoire Alessandrini's New York City 1990's recently put up a selection of photographs of the Meat Packing District as it looked, well, in the 1990s. If you're only familiar with the neighborhood as it looks today from the byways of the High Line, you're in for a shock. Buckle up, and take a ride through streets that stink of rotting meat (meat often left out on the sidewalk) where the only other individuals you're likely to encounter on the pavement are trannies, prostitutes, bikers, bondage aficionados and real New Yorkers.

Of all of Gregoire's photos, I chose the one up top as I vividly remember that cartoony rendering of Edward G. Robinson. Can't quite pinpoint the address anymore. And I love the below Vault sign (although the entrance the Vault was actually about a block away from there, if memory serves).

SAMO© is Dead

"For this film, rather than making a direct homage to Basquiat's work, the filmmakers decided instead to try to re-create the world, which spawned SAMO."

Previously on Flaming Pablum... as spotted in Courtlandt Alley...

Friday Flashback

Back in the nascent days of MTV, I vividly remember getting in a heated debate with my friend Ted about the location of this video. Based on the glitz and glamor of the setting, I remember asserting that the ritzy New York City hotel wherein the narrative of this videos plays out in must be the fabled Plaza on 59th Street. Ted, meanwhile, was ADAMANT -- despite being from New Jersey and never spending huge amounts of time in Manhattan himself -- that the Plaza Hotel did not have big floral planters outside its entrance. I'm not quite sure why this was all such a huge deal to us as the time, but I think it almost came to fisticuffs at one point. We were little hot-tempered kids back then.

Decades later, Wikipedia asserts that Ted was right. The hotel in question is the St. Regis on East 55th.

Ted, I owe you a milkshake.

The Search for the SoHo Stencil: I FOUND IT!

Okay, here's one that probably matters to only three or four people (I being one of them) at most, but I just thought I'd close the circle on it

This past February, some of you may remember a selection of posts wherein I discussed the screengrab above, a still from the late Spalding Gray's "Swimming to Cambodia." Originally, I posted this as a quiz to see if anyone could correctly identify the corner upon which ol' Spalding was waiting. In characteristically detailed fashion, Bob Egan of Popspots weighed in in March and pinpointed the spot (largely thanks to its cracked pavements) to be the northeast corner where Grand intersects with Wooster (in SoHo, obviously).

While that riddle was solved, I was positively vexed by a more elusive one that the picture boasted, that being the street art depicted behind Spalding. Back in the 80's, I vividly remember that stenciled image of an Asian man's head with slightly spiky hair to be everywhere around the streets of SoHo. I have no idea what it meant (an ambitious artist's self-portrait?), but it was all over the place. In addition, I recalled a parody of the image that was also everywhere at the time, that being a depiction of the same guy after being shot in the head.

I spent a couple more posts moaning about them, trying to find someone else who remembered them, but no one bit. I combed through veritable tomes of SoHo street art, reached out to friends of mine who are more street-art-savvy than I, but kept coming up empty. I was starting to think it was all just some unattainable fragment of the past I'd never find further evidence of.

Until last night!

I went back to a entry I'd published back in July of 2010 for no readily apparent reason. I'd brazenly lifted a photo from one Leo London's Flickr feed because it invoked a seemingly long-forgotten NYC punk band (that being Falafel Mafia). London was nice enough to weigh in and express gratitude that I'd appreciated the pic. But then, I started re-investigating his collection, and was I was practically blown out of my chair when I stumbled upon a single image that had everything I needed. That image is below.

London says that this photo was taken in October of 1990, but doesn't specify the address. Check out the selection of stencil's on the wall behind the blurry-faced figure, and you'll see that same original stencil, the mock, ominous shot-in-the-head ("End the Joke - Die For Your Art") stencil and even a second parody featuring a face that I'm interpreting as Keith Haring.

Wherever this location is, I'm dead sure these images have long since been washed off in the ensuing twenty-four years. But there they were.

Down On The Street

“Look out, honey, `cos I’m usin’ technology!”

The other day on Get Back to Work, I put up a fun little shot that I’d spotted on Tumblr of Iggy Pop sitting on what looked like it might be the Bowery or 14th Street. In turn, the mighty J. Yuenger re-posted it, but also tracked down another photo presumably from the same shoot, that being the one above.

Taken by the late Ken Regan in 1984, here we see Ig composing on a primitive word-processor, perhaps hashing out some lyrics that would later appear on 1986’s Blah Blah Blah. Glance twice and you’ll notice that his Igness is seated just around the corner from the Bowery on Houston, in front of the frequently re-tooled mural wall that was formerly adjacent to Billy’s Antiques. It being 1984, Iggy’s looking comparatively young and spry, while the world around him looks to be in some disrepair. Stroll down that block today and it’s markedly different.

These days, you might be more likely to see Mr. Pop slumming around this neighborhood with fatuous fashionista and rocker-wannabe, John Varvatos.

Can anyone name the location in this shot, though?

Combat Fatigue: Combat Rock 31 Years Later

According to the Facebook page of the excellent Slicing Up Eyeballs (and who am I to argue with them?), today marks the … gulp…31st anniversary of the release of Combat Rock by ye olde Clash. Let’s review, shall we?

Some might suggest that the well had already been poisoned by that point, put off by the arguable excesses of the sprawling Sandinista that preceded it. Personally speaking, I remember actively wincing when my mom walked into my room one day whilst I was blasting “Train in Vain” off of London Calling and chirpily remarking “Now, THIS I actually LIKE! (for more on my mother’s feelings about Punk Rock, click here).

Funnily enough, my family’s first taste of the Clash came via a box of records sent home to my sister and I by my father. He’d been sent to England by Forbes magazine in the late 70’s to be their London bureau chief, and befriended someone from Epic/Columbia Records. As such, in a rare moment of good-footedness, he rightly assumed that my older sister and I would greatly appreciate a box of freebies. A big crate of vinyl arrived, and my sister and I hungrily divvied it up (she taking the disco and funk records, I taking the gratuitous rock selections). Among the latter came Pure Mania by the Vibrators and the first Clash LP (UK edition), both of which went into heavy rotation on the family stereo (“Janie Jones” being the living room favorite). My mother and step-father hated it. It was thus christened “essential” immediately afterwards.

By 1982’s Combat Rock, however, the fatigue was clearly setting in. Sure, both “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” and the inescapable “Rock the Casbah” became ubiquitous radio staples, but for those of us lucky enough to have been on board prior to those singles, one couldn’t help feeling a bit let down for some reason. The Clash being populist was a given. The Clash being popular (or at least suddenly liked by people who’d otherwise be listening to Journey or friggin’ Michael Jackson) was just weird.

I bought it, of course. It inarguably lacked the fire of previous efforts, but there is undeniably some great stuff on Combat Rock, notably the call to arms that is “Know Your Rights” (although the live version on 1999’s From Here To Eternity trumps it) and the atmospheric “Straight to Hell” (more recently sampled to excellent effect by M.I.A.) “Overpowered by Funk” kinda tries too hard (where the band once leapt over stylistic parameters with ease), but it still enjoyable.

My favorite track on the record, ultimately, was the one below. “Inoculated City” was a comparatively quiet little ditty about the fog of war and the machinations of military propaganda . I used to play it back-to-back with Elvis Costello’s “Beyond Belief” on a weekly basis on my college radio show, not that anyone was listening.

In any case, crank it up and hoist a cold Singha to Combat Rock.

People are keen to point to Combat Rock as “the final” Clash album. It sure felt that way, but that’s not actually the case. Their final album was technically the roundly-maligned Cut the Crap in 1985 (which found Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon flanked by a trio of new dudes who weren’t Mick Jones, Topper Headon or even Terry Chimes). It’s seemingly been stricken from much of the band’s histories (nary a track from Cut the Crap appeared on the sprawling compilation, The Story of the Clash: Vol 1….perhaps they were waiting for Vol 2?), and, admittedly, it’s not very good. The single, “This Is England,” is actually okay, if truth be told.

Stuff You Might Have Missed

Just a truly random assortment of music stuff that caught my interest.

• An interesting documentary about the late Malcolm McLaren and another really cool one about Iggy Pop. 
• A cool clip from a few years back by a band called The Coathangers, who kick a bit of ass.
• A brand new video by the mighty Queens of the Stone Age.
• A great quality, vintage clip of the Boomtown Rats doing “Someone’s Lookin’ At You” for a TV spot.
• A nice piece from The Quietus circa 2011 wherein Alan Wilder of Depeche Mode/Recoil cites his favorite albums, including some nice ruminations about the sorely under-praised, latter-era albums by Talk Talk.
• A  nice video profile on John Joseph of the Cro-Mags, hosted by L.E.S. legend Clayton Patterson.
• I can’t remember if I’d pointed to this before or not, but Jim Coleman (a.k.a Phylr or Cripple Jim from Cop Shoot Cop) has an excellent blog worth your perusal.
• Speaking of Cop Shoot Cop, check out ZNo’s very metal cover of the band’s classic “Shine On, Elizabeth.”
• A super-rare (or super-rare in that I’ve never seen it) clip of XTC ripping through “Science Friction.”
• Joe Jackson talks emphatically about how not being able to smoke in bars is what drove him out of New York City.
• From Cracked.com, 5 True Stories that Shatter Your Image of Famous Rock Icons. Brutal, but really hilariously written.

Word on the Street

Spotted in Chinatown this afternoon...